| Advertisement |
--Jordan Spieth is planning a lighter travel schedule for 2017, which he hopes will lead to better results. The 23-year-old won the Hyundai Tournament of Champions to open 2016 and also captured the Dean & DeLuca Invitational in May, but he does not have a title since and has slipped from No. 1 to No. 5 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
Advertisement
Spieth has not competed in a stroke-play event since the season-ending Tour Championship in September, even skipping the WGC-HSBC Champions in China last month. He will return this week for the Australian Open and also will play the Hero World Challenge next month in the Bahamas before shutting it down for the year.
"I just wanted an offseason," said Spieth, who has 10 professional titles, including the Masters and U.S. Open in 2015, when he won five times on the PGA Tour. "I needed some time off."
Last year, Spieth made 12 starts in six countries leading up to the Masters in April, including stops in Abu Dhabi and Singapore, for which he reportedly received lucrative appearance fees.
His 2017 schedule has not yet been set in stone, but he said he plans to cut back at least a little.
"I might do more (than currently planned), but I want to take it slow and see what happens," Spieth said. "I don't need that (travel). I didn't miss it at all."
Spieth is scheduled to start 2017 with his title defense in the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii from Jan. 5-8. He won by eight strokes last year.
--The 2021 Solheim Cup, the 17th in the series, will be played at famed Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, the LPGA Tour announced.
The Solheim Cup pits the best women golfers from the United States against their counterparts from Europe.
"Inverness is one of the premier venues in golf and will serve as a great test for a match-play competition," LPGA Tour commissioner Mike Whan said.
"Additionally, Toledo has been part of the LPGA family for over 30 years, and we can't wait to see the excitement, enthusiasm and hospitality that this great community will undoubtedly bring for the Solheim Cup."
The Donald Ross-designed course at Inverness Club hosted the U.S. Open in 1920, 1931, 1957 and 1979, the PGA Championship in 1986 and 1993, and the 2003 and 2011 U.S. Senior Open Championships.
The 15th Solheim Cup will be played at Des Moines Country Club in West Des Moines, Iowa, from Aug. 14-20, 2017, with the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland, hosting the 16th Solheim Cup in 2019.
The U.S. leads Europe, 9-5, in Solheim Cup competition after rallying from a 10-6 deficit heading into Sunday singles to claim a 14.5-13.5 victory in September at St. Leon-Rot Golf Club in Germany.
It was the narrowest margin in the event's history.
The Americans overcame the largest deficit in the event's history, winning 8.5 points in the final session.
--The Web.com Tour announced in conjunction with the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism that two new events will open the 2017 season.
The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic will be played at Sandals Emerald Bay Golf Course in Great Exuma, Bahamas, from Jan. 8-11, followed by the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club on Winding Bay in Cherokee, Great Abaco, Bahamas, from Jan. 22-25.
Both tournaments will feature 132-player fields and $600,000 purses, with the winner of each receiving $108,000.
"Minister of Tourism Obie Wilchcombe was instrumental in allowing us to bring the tournaments to life, and I'm confident that the groundbreaking nature of the tournament structure, coupled with the scenic beauty of The Out Islands, will make for a fantastic television product for our fans," Web.com Tour president Bill Calfee said.
All four rounds of each tournament will be telecast live on Golf Channel.
The Bahamas also hosts the PGA Tour-sanctioned Hero World Challenge, which will be played next month and benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation, and the LPGA Tour's Pure Silk Bahamas Classic, which will be played the week after the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic.
With four top-tier professional golf tournaments, the Bahamas has more golf events that all but three states in the U.S. -- California, Texas and Florida.
The Bahamas Great Exuma Classic will be played on a Greg Norman-designed course.
The Bahamas Great Abaco Classic will be contested on the links-style course designed by Donald Steel and Tom Mackenzie.
--Dawn Coe-Jones, who won three times on the LPGA Tour, died at age 56 on Saturday morning in hospice care in Tampa, Fla., after battling a rare form of bone cancer since March.
The 56-year-old Coe-Jones, a native of Campbell River, British Columbia, was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 2003. She is survived by her husband Jimmy, son Jimmy Jr. and brothers Mark and John Coe.
"Dawn touched so many people," said Gail Graham, a fellow Canadian who played college golf at Lamar University with Coe-Jones, as well as on the LPGA Tour. "She was always the one who worried about others."
The inaugural Dawn Coe-Jones Golf Classic was held in October to raise funds for sarcoma research in her name.
Coe-Jones, who won the 1983 Canadian Women's Amateur, joined the LPGA Tour a year later and captured the 1992 Women's Kemper Open, the 1994 HealthSouth Palm Beach Classic and the 1995 Chrysler-Plymouth Classic before retiring in 2008.
Funeral arrangements are pending and the family requested that those wishing to make donations in Coe-Jones' name should do so to the Amandalee Fund for sarcoma research at the Moffitt Cancer Center Foundation in Tampa, Fla.
--The Zurich Classic of New Orleans reportedly will switch to a two-man team format in 2017, becoming the PGA Tour's first team event in nearly 40 years, according to Golf Channel.
Golf Channel reporter George Savaricas said the event will feature 80 two-man teams. Both members of the winning team will receive the two-year Tour exemption that typically accompanies a victory in an official event, and each winning player will receive 400 FedExCup points. A regular tournament offers 500 points to the winner and 300 to the runner-up.
Both winning team members will earn spots in the Tournament of Champions and PGA Championship but will not receive Masters invitations, according to the report.
The top 80 qualifiers will be allowed to choose their teammate, with the caveat that their partner must have at least some PGA Tour status for the 2016-17 season. If not, the selection will require the use of a sponsor invite.
Play will include one round of foursomes (alternate shot) and one round of fourballs (best ball) before the 36-hole cut to the low 35 teams.
The PGA Tour declined to comment on the report.
The most recent official team event on PGA Tour was the Walt Disney World National Team Championship, which featured a two-man format from 1974-81.
--Phil Mickelson underwent surgery on Oct. 19 to repair a sports hernia, according to several media sources.
The 46-year-old veteran had the operation three days after he tied for eighth in the season-opening Safeway Open at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, Calif., and reportedly things went well.
"It was a walnut-sized hernia behind my belly button," Mickelson told Tim Rosaforte of Golf Digest. "It was no big deal, nor did it affect me when I played. I pushed it back in every minute or so.
"I couldn't work out as intensely as I wanted to, that's all. It didn't hurt or affect me. It was just annoying."
According to OrthoInfo.org, a sports hernia is a tear or strain to the soft tissue in the groin or lower abdomen. It happens most often in sports that require sudden changes of direction or twisting.
Recovery time following sports hernia surgery varies, but typically it takes four to six weeks.
That means Mickelson should be ready for what is expected to be his first start of 2017, the CareerBuilder Challenge in January at La Quinta, Calif. Mickelson was named as ambassador of the event in May.
Mickelson, who has won 42 times in his PGA Tour career but not since the 2013 Open Championship at Muirfield, was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis in 2010 but is taking medication for the condition and said it has not impacted his golf.
